The Best Places to Hear Jazz in Detroit
Since the 1920s when the Jazz Age coincided with Detroit’s own meteoric rise, the city has been a hotspot for one of America’s greatest artforms. As home to the world’s largest free jazz festival and a number of legendary clubs, it’s an excellent place to hear local talent and national acts. Here are the best places in town.
1. Detroit Jazz Festival
Music Venue
The city has hosted a free jazz festival since 1980, and it has grown to be the world’s largest. Each year, 300,000 jazz fans flock to Detroit to hear more than 60 live performances, as well as showcases, talks, and famous late-night jam sessions. It takes place on Labor Day weekend, with stages around Hart Plaza and Campus Martius. If you can’t make it to the actual festival, it now organizes a year-round program of performances.
2. Dirty Dog Jazz Cafe
Music Venue
The Detroit Jazz Festival would probably no longer exist without the help of Gretchen Valade, a jazz enthusiast and philanthropist from the city. She also owns the Dirty Dog Jazz Cafe in Grosse Pointe, an intimate, pub-style venue offering a mix of fine dining and comfort food alongside nightly live performances by some of the country’s top jazz musicians.
3. Cliff Bell's
Music Venue
Cliff Bell’s has been around for so long that when it was closed for 20 years, it was barely a blip in its story. After operating one speakeasy after another during Prohibition, Cliff Bell opened his signature jazz club in 1935. Since being reopened and restored to its former glory in 2005, it’s become one of the city’s coolest nightspots thanks to its classic ambiance, decor and music.
5. Jazz Cafe at Music Hall
Music Venue
Tucked inside the Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts, which once hosted the Detroit Jazz Festival, the Jazz Cafe at Music Hall is a cozy spot that hosts poetry and comedy alongside regular shows by local and nationally-recognized artists. The setting is pretty and intimate, with busy nights ensuring the small room will be packed out.
6. Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Paradise Jazz Series
Music Venue
Providing a completely different atmosphere to the rest of this list, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra puts on an annual program of one-night-only jazz shows at Orchestra Hall. In the 1940s, the hall hosted jazz artists under the name Paradise Theater, with Billie Holiday, Count Basie and Duke Ellington among those to play. Today, the Paradise Jazz Series honors that tradition.
7. Bert's Marketplace
Music Venue
Don’t let the name fool you, Bert’s Marketplace in the Eastern Market area is a multi-faceted entertainment complex, with a popular soul food restaurant alongside its cozy jazz bar. It’s open late every night of the week, with shows almost every day including open mic jazz jam sessions on Thursdays. Remember the kitchen is open late if you work up an appetite.
Since you are here, we would like to share our vision for the future of travel - and the direction Culture Trip is moving in.
Culture Trip launched in 2011 with a simple yet passionate mission: to inspire people to go beyond their boundaries and experience what makes a place, its people and its culture special and meaningful — and this is still in our DNA today. We are proud that, for more than a decade, millions like you have trusted our award-winning recommendations by people who deeply understand what makes certain places and communities so special.
Increasingly we believe the world needs more meaningful, real-life connections between curious travellers keen to explore the world in a more responsible way. That is why we have intensively curated a collection of premium small-group trips as an invitation to meet and connect with new, like-minded people for once-in-a-lifetime experiences in three categories: Culture Trips, Rail Trips and Private Trips. Our Trips are suitable for both solo travelers, couples and friends who want to explore the world together.
Culture Trips are deeply immersive 5 to 16 days itineraries, that combine authentic local experiences, exciting activities and 4-5* accommodation to look forward to at the end of each day. Our Rail Trips are our most planet-friendly itineraries that invite you to take the scenic route, relax whilst getting under the skin of a destination. Our Private Trips are fully tailored itineraries, curated by our Travel Experts specifically for you, your friends or your family.
We know that many of you worry about the environmental impact of travel and are looking for ways of expanding horizons in ways that do minimal harm - and may even bring benefits. We are committed to go as far as possible in curating our trips with care for the planet. That is why all of our trips are flightless in destination, fully carbon offset - and we have ambitious plans to be net zero in the very near future.